BinaryMessiah
Final Fantasy VII is one of the most influential video game and pop culture icons of all time. It was revolutionary in its day in storytelling, graphics, and scope. I never got around to playing the original PS1 game. When the game came out, I just wasn't into JRPGs and would never have had the patience to finish the game or even remotely understand the story. I was 7 at the time. Fast forward nearly three decades, and out comes the remake. The Final Fantasy VII projects have been in the making for nearly two decades. I remember the Adventu Children being released. I rented it and watched it with my parents, and I had no idea what was going on. There was a mobile game exclusive to Japan at the time, and Crisis Core had just been released. I also had no idea what was going on in that game. I couldn't appreciate these FF7 projects as I hadn't played the original title.
That has all changed. Square Enix did a great job bringing the game up to par with modern audiences and video game standards. Not only is the story well told and easy to follow, but it's still complex and full of interesting and lovable characters. While this game is only what the first disc from the original offered, there are 30+ hours of content here to explore. While the game isn't perfect, there is more to love than to hate, and I was surprised at how great this game was. I didn't want to put it down. From the well-done English voice-acting (which was a shocker) to the well-paced and fast-moving story, the game never got stale (at least during the story moments).
The basic structure of this game is very linear. This is a dated design choice that transferred over, but some think this game has been in development since the tech demo for the PS3 reveal was shown in 2006. If that were the case, then this linear design would have been considered mostly modern at the time. There are large towns to explore, but these still have linear paths, and the story mode is a single path you follow, and there's no way to branch off. This is both fine for a scripted story but also feels cramped in some aspects. Despite how large Midgar feels, with sweeping vistas and massive backdrops, you can explore very little of it. There's a large sense of scale, but what you can explore just feels so claustrophobic in comparison. Many thought this would be an open-world game, but to follow the story the way Square Enix's wants, that wouldn't be possible, and I can see why they chose this path.
Exploring the game (and even the menu system) is similar to most modern Final Fantasy games. You run around towards a goal, fight bosses, run into enemies, do some mini-games, complete side quests, and try to get the best accessories, armor, and weapons in the game. This is all slowly introduced to you, but let's start with the combat, as that's the bulk of the game. Combat is not turn-based, but you can pause the action to give commands. The controls are intuitively designed to allow this to be done with minimal effort. You have regular attacks, a special attack, a block, and a dodge button. When enemies have red exclamations over their heads with the attack name, you know it can't be blocked but must be dodged. Cloud's alternate special attack is actually a stance called Punisher Mode, and while you block him, he will auto-parry incoming attacks. This comes in handy all the time.
You can issue commands, such as using ababilities. These are obtained by changing weapons. Materia can be equipped to give you commands that use MP. Things like magic, offense, defense, and even passive Materia can be slotted. Different weapons and equipment determine your slot count. It's important that you learn this system well and balance your team. You can only have three active party members at a time, but you never change your party. It's all based on the story. You will go through multiple chapters with a missing party member, but you can still upgrade and equip them all the time, even when they aren't with you. Powering up weapons is also a must. Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. Some focus on sheer power, some on magic, and some on defensive skills. You acquire SP through combat and can use it across all weapons. Each weapon gets the same pool of SP separately. If you have 90 SP, you can use that separately on each weapon, which is really nice. As you level up, you unlock new SP pools.
Combat is fast-paced, fun, and exciting. Each character can be controlled by the player in combat only. During exploration, you're mostly stuck as Cloud or another character, as the story deems fit. Cloud is an all-rounder; Aerith mostly focuses on magic and distance combat; Tifa is a fast-paced melee fighter; and Barret uses a mid- to long-range gun, which is great for aerial enemies. He also has a ton of HP and defensive points. You can issue commands to other characters with the triggers that pause combat. You all have two AP gauges that fill up slowly over time or quicker as you do damage. These are needed to even use items in combat. These guides are the center of your strategy because, without them, you will die. You have limit breaks, which really can only be filled during longer battles (mostly bosses) and summons that deal massive damage, but the battle needs to be long enough to fill these guages.
Summons are mostly acquired optically through the VR training. You only get two during the story mode automatically. These are the keys to strategizing battles and winning as quickly as possible. I found the combat rarely frustrating. Only during long boss battles with multiple phases did I find it annoying that these cut-scenes were not skippable. You need to watch them all over again if you die. This didn't become an issue until towards the end of the game. You can run away from battle by running away and fleeing, and thankfully enemies regenerate until you leave the entire area and come back. The boss battles are all unique and imaginative, and no one is the same. The smaller enemies are also unique and different, and they require you to learn their attacks and know what is weak against what type of attack. There is a lot more strategy in the combat system than a simple hack-and-slash setup.
While combat is the bulk of the game, you will spend a lot of time outside of combat. There are a few simple puzzles inside some dungeons, but the hub areas or towns you explore allow you to rest, buy items, materia, armor, and weapons, and that's about it. The side quests and mini-games are some of the weakest parts of this game. While not every side- question is bad, Some offer challenging boss fights and good rewards; some just don't offer much story-wise. I completed almost all of them anyway for more XP, SP, and the items they offered, but fetch quests are just not fun here. Not to mention, the mini-games are incredibly tedious and boring and not well thought out. There's an okay darts mini-game. Beating the highest score and achievement. But there's a box-breaking mini-game that requires you to run around breaking different-sized boxes. This was incredibly tedious and not fun. There are combat VR simulators that net you material. Most of which you can acquire elsewhere. Then there's the optional summons, which can be incredibly difficult to acquire early on as you need to beat them, and you need three party members to even have a fair chance. There's also a pretty stupid dancing rhythm mini-game. It's just, overall, a bit lame.
Some other annoying niggles come from dated design decisions, like treating the player like they're stupid. For decades, games would have you flip a switch, cut the camera away, show you that a gate in front of you opened, and then give you control. I'm pretty sure most people can figure out that the switch opened the only gate on the only path you can go down. I also got annoyed by how animations would have to line up to whatever script they were tied to, do the animation, re-align, change animations, flip the switch, then go back. It just slowed things down a lot.
Outside of the mostly optional and passable annoyances, the visuals are fantastic. Character models look amazing, the pre-rendered cutscenes are some of the best in the industry, and the story and overall character designs are some of the best you will ever come across. The story is deep and full of political intrigue, and I want to know more about this world, the characters, and see things move on. It's sad that Square Enix takes so long to make sequels, but what are we going to do? With the fantastic combat system that adds just enough strategy and depth to the large swath of enemies, bosses, environments, and perfect pacing, FF7 Remake is fantastic. The additional Intermission DLC is also wonderful, and playing as Yuffie is a blast. The short, 4-hour story DLC still has more of the same lame mini-games and annoyances as the main game, but the story is just so well done. There's nothing quite like it out there.
That has all changed. Square Enix did a great job bringing the game up to par with modern audiences and video game standards. Not only is the story well told and easy to follow, but it's still complex and full of interesting and lovable characters. While this game is only what the first disc from the original offered, there are 30+ hours of content here to explore. While the game isn't perfect, there is more to love than to hate, and I was surprised at how great this game was. I didn't want to put it down. From the well-done English voice-acting (which was a shocker) to the well-paced and fast-moving story, the game never got stale (at least during the story moments).
The basic structure of this game is very linear. This is a dated design choice that transferred over, but some think this game has been in development since the tech demo for the PS3 reveal was shown in 2006. If that were the case, then this linear design would have been considered mostly modern at the time. There are large towns to explore, but these still have linear paths, and the story mode is a single path you follow, and there's no way to branch off. This is both fine for a scripted story but also feels cramped in some aspects. Despite how large Midgar feels, with sweeping vistas and massive backdrops, you can explore very little of it. There's a large sense of scale, but what you can explore just feels so claustrophobic in comparison. Many thought this would be an open-world game, but to follow the story the way Square Enix's wants, that wouldn't be possible, and I can see why they chose this path.
Exploring the game (and even the menu system) is similar to most modern Final Fantasy games. You run around towards a goal, fight bosses, run into enemies, do some mini-games, complete side quests, and try to get the best accessories, armor, and weapons in the game. This is all slowly introduced to you, but let's start with the combat, as that's the bulk of the game. Combat is not turn-based, but you can pause the action to give commands. The controls are intuitively designed to allow this to be done with minimal effort. You have regular attacks, a special attack, a block, and a dodge button. When enemies have red exclamations over their heads with the attack name, you know it can't be blocked but must be dodged. Cloud's alternate special attack is actually a stance called Punisher Mode, and while you block him, he will auto-parry incoming attacks. This comes in handy all the time.
You can issue commands, such as using ababilities. These are obtained by changing weapons. Materia can be equipped to give you commands that use MP. Things like magic, offense, defense, and even passive Materia can be slotted. Different weapons and equipment determine your slot count. It's important that you learn this system well and balance your team. You can only have three active party members at a time, but you never change your party. It's all based on the story. You will go through multiple chapters with a missing party member, but you can still upgrade and equip them all the time, even when they aren't with you. Powering up weapons is also a must. Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses. Some focus on sheer power, some on magic, and some on defensive skills. You acquire SP through combat and can use it across all weapons. Each weapon gets the same pool of SP separately. If you have 90 SP, you can use that separately on each weapon, which is really nice. As you level up, you unlock new SP pools.
Combat is fast-paced, fun, and exciting. Each character can be controlled by the player in combat only. During exploration, you're mostly stuck as Cloud or another character, as the story deems fit. Cloud is an all-rounder; Aerith mostly focuses on magic and distance combat; Tifa is a fast-paced melee fighter; and Barret uses a mid- to long-range gun, which is great for aerial enemies. He also has a ton of HP and defensive points. You can issue commands to other characters with the triggers that pause combat. You all have two AP gauges that fill up slowly over time or quicker as you do damage. These are needed to even use items in combat. These guides are the center of your strategy because, without them, you will die. You have limit breaks, which really can only be filled during longer battles (mostly bosses) and summons that deal massive damage, but the battle needs to be long enough to fill these guages.
Summons are mostly acquired optically through the VR training. You only get two during the story mode automatically. These are the keys to strategizing battles and winning as quickly as possible. I found the combat rarely frustrating. Only during long boss battles with multiple phases did I find it annoying that these cut-scenes were not skippable. You need to watch them all over again if you die. This didn't become an issue until towards the end of the game. You can run away from battle by running away and fleeing, and thankfully enemies regenerate until you leave the entire area and come back. The boss battles are all unique and imaginative, and no one is the same. The smaller enemies are also unique and different, and they require you to learn their attacks and know what is weak against what type of attack. There is a lot more strategy in the combat system than a simple hack-and-slash setup.
While combat is the bulk of the game, you will spend a lot of time outside of combat. There are a few simple puzzles inside some dungeons, but the hub areas or towns you explore allow you to rest, buy items, materia, armor, and weapons, and that's about it. The side quests and mini-games are some of the weakest parts of this game. While not every side- question is bad, Some offer challenging boss fights and good rewards; some just don't offer much story-wise. I completed almost all of them anyway for more XP, SP, and the items they offered, but fetch quests are just not fun here. Not to mention, the mini-games are incredibly tedious and boring and not well thought out. There's an okay darts mini-game. Beating the highest score and achievement. But there's a box-breaking mini-game that requires you to run around breaking different-sized boxes. This was incredibly tedious and not fun. There are combat VR simulators that net you material. Most of which you can acquire elsewhere. Then there's the optional summons, which can be incredibly difficult to acquire early on as you need to beat them, and you need three party members to even have a fair chance. There's also a pretty stupid dancing rhythm mini-game. It's just, overall, a bit lame.
Some other annoying niggles come from dated design decisions, like treating the player like they're stupid. For decades, games would have you flip a switch, cut the camera away, show you that a gate in front of you opened, and then give you control. I'm pretty sure most people can figure out that the switch opened the only gate on the only path you can go down. I also got annoyed by how animations would have to line up to whatever script they were tied to, do the animation, re-align, change animations, flip the switch, then go back. It just slowed things down a lot.
Outside of the mostly optional and passable annoyances, the visuals are fantastic. Character models look amazing, the pre-rendered cutscenes are some of the best in the industry, and the story and overall character designs are some of the best you will ever come across. The story is deep and full of political intrigue, and I want to know more about this world, the characters, and see things move on. It's sad that Square Enix takes so long to make sequels, but what are we going to do? With the fantastic combat system that adds just enough strategy and depth to the large swath of enemies, bosses, environments, and perfect pacing, FF7 Remake is fantastic. The additional Intermission DLC is also wonderful, and playing as Yuffie is a blast. The short, 4-hour story DLC still has more of the same lame mini-games and annoyances as the main game, but the story is just so well done. There's nothing quite like it out there.
Have you ever wondered what it's like to play a game as the actual code or program inside the game? Well, now you can! TING is a game in which you embark on an adventure with the game's code. You start out at the title screen and must dismantle the entire screen to get the code's attention. In this process, you discover a "glitch" that is trying to destroy everything. You get sucked into other dimensions and try to find your way back. The entire game is in the style of a point-and-click adventure, but instead of controlling a single character, you are the "user" that the code talks to. He gives you hints along the way as well as being able to unlock actual hints, which makes some of the more obscure puzzles easier.
You have to really think outside the box with this game, as you can take down parts of the UI and completely break the smaller games inside to progress. You will end up with a classic adventure title and a JRPG that makes fun of Zelda tropes. The game also pokes fun at other games and mechanics, such as microtransactions and free-to-play mechanics. I don't want to spoil the Easter eggs, but the game has a great sense of humor, and anyone who has watched a few behind-the-scenes videos on how games are made will appreciate this game and the message it's getting across.
Every area is new and different, and no two puzzles are the same. Some areas have multiple screens, and you can manipulate them in interesting ways, such as unscrewing the computer monitor you're playing the game on and getting the back of the scene through the back panel. You have to also be okay with dragging the objects onto everything and trying combinations. Some things may not look obvious, but they make sense once you get the object or discover its use. Things like a mouse cursor popping a balloon, a metal letter T being used as a screwdriver, and the sign to a game title being used as a bridge. Almost every puzzle can be figured out with a bit of thinking, but a few were so obscure that I had to use all the hints available to me. When you press the hints button, it will show locks over the object that has hints. This can also be useful just to figure out what objects can be interacted with or what your focus should be without even using a single hint.
There are cutscenes in the game that can't be interacted with, and this is shown with filmstrips going up the sides of the screen. Because this is a "joke" game and you can break actual games inside, you need other cues as to what's a joke and what is not. Sometimes I didn't know what was a joke and wound up restarting the game, but you also need to trust the game. There isn't much else in terms of gameplay, but there doesn't need to be. This is a very clever idea for a game that I have never seen before. The story is interesting, the characters are likeable, and it's just an overall fun time and something really unique. The visuals are charming and switch up all the time, which makes you think outside the box.
You have to really think outside the box with this game, as you can take down parts of the UI and completely break the smaller games inside to progress. You will end up with a classic adventure title and a JRPG that makes fun of Zelda tropes. The game also pokes fun at other games and mechanics, such as microtransactions and free-to-play mechanics. I don't want to spoil the Easter eggs, but the game has a great sense of humor, and anyone who has watched a few behind-the-scenes videos on how games are made will appreciate this game and the message it's getting across.
Every area is new and different, and no two puzzles are the same. Some areas have multiple screens, and you can manipulate them in interesting ways, such as unscrewing the computer monitor you're playing the game on and getting the back of the scene through the back panel. You have to also be okay with dragging the objects onto everything and trying combinations. Some things may not look obvious, but they make sense once you get the object or discover its use. Things like a mouse cursor popping a balloon, a metal letter T being used as a screwdriver, and the sign to a game title being used as a bridge. Almost every puzzle can be figured out with a bit of thinking, but a few were so obscure that I had to use all the hints available to me. When you press the hints button, it will show locks over the object that has hints. This can also be useful just to figure out what objects can be interacted with or what your focus should be without even using a single hint.
There are cutscenes in the game that can't be interacted with, and this is shown with filmstrips going up the sides of the screen. Because this is a "joke" game and you can break actual games inside, you need other cues as to what's a joke and what is not. Sometimes I didn't know what was a joke and wound up restarting the game, but you also need to trust the game. There isn't much else in terms of gameplay, but there doesn't need to be. This is a very clever idea for a game that I have never seen before. The story is interesting, the characters are likeable, and it's just an overall fun time and something really unique. The visuals are charming and switch up all the time, which makes you think outside the box.
2022
We all played with our imaginations as children. Pretending to go on adventures, or actually going on adventures against our parents chagrin, was what made up our most precious childhood memories. Whether it was spending long summer days playing with friends or staying inside with your siblings playing the latest revolutionary video game, That is what Lost in Play is about. Making adventures and memories as a child.
You play as a brother and sister, Gal and Toto, who wake up on a bright summer day and decide to get lost in their own imaginations. The first few chapters have you going from their reality to actual reality to give you this idea of what's going on. The game is full of a lot of puzzles and figuring out what items go where. This can be both fun and frustrating at the same time. I wasn't a fan of most of the puzzles, but the screen increases in numbers as you look for objects and figure out what needs to go where.
The first screen is a perfect way to introduce this. It's just a single screen, and you learn to click on objects that are standing out. The characters will interact with it or talk to the person. A bubble will pop up with the item the character wants, or your player character will pop a bubble up explaining in one single picture what they need to do. There is a generous hint system that shows a single picture of what to do next or helps you get started with a puzzle. I love this, and it doesn't punish the player at all; however, some of the hints were not helpful.
As you progress through the game, you get to chapters with many screens and many things to interact with. Once you find your first object, you can usually build momentum and realize who needs what and where. The puzzles are the worst part of the game. Extremely hard slider puzzles; some games are won purely on chance, which is frustrating. Sometimes rules aren't explained well enough. A particular puzzle with lasers and having to slide animals around to deflect gets very frustrating as it's a sliding puzzle. The worst one in the game is the final puzzle, in which you have to trap a jumping frog on a grid. It's done by pure chance, and no walkthrough will help you. There are also some puzzles with symbols, and it seems impossible to figure out what they represent or how to interpret them.
The puzzles aren't very common, but they do hamper some of the experience. I really loved seeing all of the detail poured into this game's animation. It feels like a high-quality cartoon. Every interaction is a new animation. One particular point where this stood out was Gal or Toto picking up the same type of object numerous times. Instead of the same pick-up animation, each one was unique. They didn't have to do that. It makes the entire game feel alive and soulful. The story itself isn't anything complex or deep, and there's no voice acting. Characters speak in a simple fashion, which adds to the charm of the game. The visuals are bright and colorful, and every screen and moment feels special. They don't make many games like this.
Outside of the puzzle issues, there was just a small annoyance with touch controls on mobile. Tapping the screen can sometimes cause you to interact with the same object or character, but it was nothing serious. Every area felt unique and different, and I couldn't put the game down until the end. You can probably finish this in 2-3 hours, but it's so much fun and constantly feels fresh and new. Lost in Play is a rare adventure game that I actually might remember and talk about later with people. This game proves that every little detail can make a difference.
You play as a brother and sister, Gal and Toto, who wake up on a bright summer day and decide to get lost in their own imaginations. The first few chapters have you going from their reality to actual reality to give you this idea of what's going on. The game is full of a lot of puzzles and figuring out what items go where. This can be both fun and frustrating at the same time. I wasn't a fan of most of the puzzles, but the screen increases in numbers as you look for objects and figure out what needs to go where.
The first screen is a perfect way to introduce this. It's just a single screen, and you learn to click on objects that are standing out. The characters will interact with it or talk to the person. A bubble will pop up with the item the character wants, or your player character will pop a bubble up explaining in one single picture what they need to do. There is a generous hint system that shows a single picture of what to do next or helps you get started with a puzzle. I love this, and it doesn't punish the player at all; however, some of the hints were not helpful.
As you progress through the game, you get to chapters with many screens and many things to interact with. Once you find your first object, you can usually build momentum and realize who needs what and where. The puzzles are the worst part of the game. Extremely hard slider puzzles; some games are won purely on chance, which is frustrating. Sometimes rules aren't explained well enough. A particular puzzle with lasers and having to slide animals around to deflect gets very frustrating as it's a sliding puzzle. The worst one in the game is the final puzzle, in which you have to trap a jumping frog on a grid. It's done by pure chance, and no walkthrough will help you. There are also some puzzles with symbols, and it seems impossible to figure out what they represent or how to interpret them.
The puzzles aren't very common, but they do hamper some of the experience. I really loved seeing all of the detail poured into this game's animation. It feels like a high-quality cartoon. Every interaction is a new animation. One particular point where this stood out was Gal or Toto picking up the same type of object numerous times. Instead of the same pick-up animation, each one was unique. They didn't have to do that. It makes the entire game feel alive and soulful. The story itself isn't anything complex or deep, and there's no voice acting. Characters speak in a simple fashion, which adds to the charm of the game. The visuals are bright and colorful, and every screen and moment feels special. They don't make many games like this.
Outside of the puzzle issues, there was just a small annoyance with touch controls on mobile. Tapping the screen can sometimes cause you to interact with the same object or character, but it was nothing serious. Every area felt unique and different, and I couldn't put the game down until the end. You can probably finish this in 2-3 hours, but it's so much fun and constantly feels fresh and new. Lost in Play is a rare adventure game that I actually might remember and talk about later with people. This game proves that every little detail can make a difference.
1993
Point-and-click adventures are already as archaic as they are. They are probably one of the least evolved video game genres and have mostly remained unchanged over the last few decades. Beyond Shadowgate was one of the first graphical adventure games that became a big deal. You move your hero around, clicking on things, talking to people, and hopefully solving some of the many obtuse puzzles in the game.
Beyond Shadowgate has a very simple story ripped straight from a text adventure or an 80's low-budget cartoon. You are the hero, Prince Erik, who is framed for his father's murder. You start out in the dungeons, break your way out, and off you go to beat the real murderer. The beginning of the of the dungeon is a simple version of what's to come. You need to get out of the room, and here you need to figure out how to use your inventory, action icons, and consequences for not reacting fast enough. You will meet the Grim Reaper along with a gory animation if certain actions are done, or not done, on time, and these can be quite hilarious.
I understand that this was made back when point-and-click adventures were fairly new, but one thing I can never get past are the obtuse puzzles and lack of any hints. There is a good and bad ending, and to even get to those, you need specific items to access the final room in the game. These items are acquired by either finding them or purchasing their alternatives. Some items can be completely missed just by killing a specific creature or not talking to someone before another event is triggered. Thankfully, most of these items have multiples, so you will come across them in some form. Most of the game has Erik wandering around teasing people, and this is done by selecting the speech bubble icon and using it over something. You can see a description of something with the eye icon, and you can use items by using the hand icon. The inventory works for the limited buttons you have. There is a single column you can scroll through, and getting to the inventory requires multiple button presses.
There is a duck and punch button because these are required for combat. It doesn't come often, but each fight gives Erik a different amount of health. He has no health bar, and it's reset when the creatures die or you leave the screen. You can hold the punch button down, and this will lock the enemies in an animation loop of winging, and that's your opportunity to keep up the pressure. There are a couple of tough boss fights that require patience, but this is far from a good combat mechanic, and it doesn't need to be either. My biggest gripe is how slowly Erik walks, and there's no run button. Backtracking a dozen screens can take forever since each screen has a black screen before it while it loads. This is one of the downsides of being a CD-based game.
There aren't a lot of characters to talk to, but the mood and atmosphere are well done here. The graphics are well drawn, and the music is fantastic. I think this is the best part of Shadowgate, but the voice acting is also surprisingly good as well, and there's a fair amount of it for a game of this age. I just wish this game could be completed without a guide, but it's nearly impossible without one. I got about 1/4 through the game and had no idea what to do. I wound up missing objects that blended in with the background, and I never would have found them without a guide. Even with a guide, I still missed items and objects that I would have had to restart the game for. At least there are three save slots, so you can go back and forth between them.
Overall, Beyond Shadowgate is a relic of its time. Obtuse puzzles, no hints, and objects that blend into the background, as well as game-stopping walls if you miss an object, A couple will even require an entire game restart. The music and atmosphere are well done, and the death scenes are pretty gory and fun to watch. The voice acting is great, as is the music, and this is all thanks to the CD technology. However, the combat is pretty basic and cumbersome, as are the controls and inventory management. I say that with a guide, this game is well worth playing through, but just don't expect a memorable story.
Beyond Shadowgate has a very simple story ripped straight from a text adventure or an 80's low-budget cartoon. You are the hero, Prince Erik, who is framed for his father's murder. You start out in the dungeons, break your way out, and off you go to beat the real murderer. The beginning of the of the dungeon is a simple version of what's to come. You need to get out of the room, and here you need to figure out how to use your inventory, action icons, and consequences for not reacting fast enough. You will meet the Grim Reaper along with a gory animation if certain actions are done, or not done, on time, and these can be quite hilarious.
I understand that this was made back when point-and-click adventures were fairly new, but one thing I can never get past are the obtuse puzzles and lack of any hints. There is a good and bad ending, and to even get to those, you need specific items to access the final room in the game. These items are acquired by either finding them or purchasing their alternatives. Some items can be completely missed just by killing a specific creature or not talking to someone before another event is triggered. Thankfully, most of these items have multiples, so you will come across them in some form. Most of the game has Erik wandering around teasing people, and this is done by selecting the speech bubble icon and using it over something. You can see a description of something with the eye icon, and you can use items by using the hand icon. The inventory works for the limited buttons you have. There is a single column you can scroll through, and getting to the inventory requires multiple button presses.
There is a duck and punch button because these are required for combat. It doesn't come often, but each fight gives Erik a different amount of health. He has no health bar, and it's reset when the creatures die or you leave the screen. You can hold the punch button down, and this will lock the enemies in an animation loop of winging, and that's your opportunity to keep up the pressure. There are a couple of tough boss fights that require patience, but this is far from a good combat mechanic, and it doesn't need to be either. My biggest gripe is how slowly Erik walks, and there's no run button. Backtracking a dozen screens can take forever since each screen has a black screen before it while it loads. This is one of the downsides of being a CD-based game.
There aren't a lot of characters to talk to, but the mood and atmosphere are well done here. The graphics are well drawn, and the music is fantastic. I think this is the best part of Shadowgate, but the voice acting is also surprisingly good as well, and there's a fair amount of it for a game of this age. I just wish this game could be completed without a guide, but it's nearly impossible without one. I got about 1/4 through the game and had no idea what to do. I wound up missing objects that blended in with the background, and I never would have found them without a guide. Even with a guide, I still missed items and objects that I would have had to restart the game for. At least there are three save slots, so you can go back and forth between them.
Overall, Beyond Shadowgate is a relic of its time. Obtuse puzzles, no hints, and objects that blend into the background, as well as game-stopping walls if you miss an object, A couple will even require an entire game restart. The music and atmosphere are well done, and the death scenes are pretty gory and fun to watch. The voice acting is great, as is the music, and this is all thanks to the CD technology. However, the combat is pretty basic and cumbersome, as are the controls and inventory management. I say that with a guide, this game is well worth playing through, but just don't expect a memorable story.
2023
The original Alan Wake is one of my favorite horror games of all time. Its gameplay may not hold up well today, but overall, the game is still solid. The atmosphere really pulled me in when the game was released, and here I am now, 13 years later, living in the PNW near where the first game was inspired. The story was full of mystery and suspense and always saw-sawed between being confusing and then suddenly making sense—always being a mystery. The story of light vs. dark and the definition of insanity play a big role in the world of Alan Wake, and that goes even further in the sequel.
Alan Wake II is pretty much an entire reboot on the surface. Taking some design questions from Remedy's previous entries, like Quantum Break and Control, they have integrated the series into their "Remedyverse" (you can borrow that one if you want!). The story has an entirely new way of being told via live-action cutscenes and in real-time. The new playable character, Saga Anderson, is introduced as an FBI agent who is investigating cult murders in the town of Bright Falls. She gets sucked into the story of Alan as he tries to write his way out of his own madness and destroy the main antagonist from the first game, Scratch. The story continues that constant teetering of not making much sense and then wrapping around multiple times to have it all click, but I highly recommend playing the first game (there's a remastered version out now) before playing this one, as there are many references. I also recommend playing Control first as well, as the stories are intertwined.
The game starts out so much different than the first game. Instead of a long, drawn-out, time-ccut scene of sunshine and beauty, you are tossed straight into something straight out of Silent Hill. You're a naked, bloated man running from cultists. It's a crazy way to start a game, and it shows the cinematic quality and effort put into this game. However, you control Saga first, and this is where the first half of the game starts. You jump between Alan and Saga, but their levels are unique on their own. Saga's side is more action-oriented and collectible hunting. There are three main large areas in the game. Watery, Bright Falls, and Cauldron Lake. Bright Falls is a main hub town that you can walk around in and also find collectibles. These range from cult stashes, breaking open locks with a screwdriver or boltcutters (found later in the game), Alex Casey lunchboxes, and nursery rhymes. These are all fun to find, and they all reward you with different things. The lunchboxes give you manuscript scraps used to unlock weapon perks; the rhymes unlock charms; and the cult stashes have various usable items in them.
The combat itself is familiar from the original game, but it's more refined and feels like a solid third-person shooter. You still blast the darkness from vulnerabilities to make them vulnerable to your gunfire, but it's less frequent. Alan Wake felt like an action title and less like a survival horror due to so many enemies thrown at you at once. Like any survival horror game with guns, the best ones are locked away and require puzzle-solving skills to acquire them. Usually it's a three-digit code, and you need to figure out the clues in the room you are in. It's usually not super hard, and the answer is right in front of you. You just need to be observant. Weapons feel good to shoot, and while there aren't many, they feel unique. The pistol, shotgun (sawed-off, double-barelled, and pump variety), crossbow, revolver, and hunting rifle make up the majority of your weapons, but Saga and Alan's sides play differently even with combat.
Alan isn't a fighter. He has much more limited ammo than Saga gets and usually only has the revolver and flare gun through most of the game. The shadows usually won't attack you if you side-step them, but in some cases, they require you to fight. He has less health than Saga, and his levels are mostly backtracking puzzle-solving-style affairs. This leads me to talk about the Mind Place. This is essentially an interactive pause screen that would normally be a menu with flipping pages. It's a room that loads instantly, and you advance the story here. Saga's Mind Place is more complicated and involved. She has cases on the wall, and as you discover things, you can place evidence on said wall, and when you find everything for that chapter, the case will be solved. However, solving these cases isn't required. You just need to place the main ones to advance the story. She also has a profiling section in which she can talk to characters in her mind. This gives her ideas when she is stuck and needs to move on further. There are also areas to listen to radio programs you found, TV shows, and manuscripts.
Alan's Writer's Room is similar, but you use it less often. Instead of profiling and cases to solve, Alan can switch scenes he finds through echos found throughout the levels. These are black-and-white orbs that shimmer, and you must align them with the camera to activate the scene. This is where a lot of the puzzle-solving comes in, and honestly, it is the weakest part of the game. Switching between scenes can become frustrating because you don't know which one you need to be in to access a certain area. When you switch scenes, rooms get closed off and new ones open. This also doubles down on the light-holding feature. Alan can absorb certain bright lights that open up a new path in that room. Some areas have up to three or four lights that need to be absorbed or put back in a certain order, and it can cause frustration. I didn't like this part of Alan's story. You can switch between Saga and Alan at any time with portals in certain levels and play any chapter in any order. Alan's side is mostly cinematic adventure stuff with a lot more storytelling than Saga's. Saga has larger areas to explore (three whole large maps), and Alan is mostly confined to one small area and kept inside various buildings in a more urban setting.
Outside of the Writer's Room scene switching and the confusing mess some of the levels can be, the game is solid with a 15-20 hour play time. There is so much content in this game that it's hard to hate it. The visuals are state-of-the-art and push PCs and consoles to their absolute limits and beyond. On PC, Alan Wake II sports the latest ray-tracing and path-tracing tech and mesh shaders, which have been crippling the highest end of hardware. Unless you have a 4xxx series RTX card that can utilize the DLSS Frame Generation, you're going to struggle with ray-tracing. Even with DLSS on balanced and ray-tracing set to medium (and other settings optimized through guides online), I would dip below 60FPS at 1440p. Without ray-tracing, the game runs much better, but this is one of the few games where RTX actually makes the game a different experience.
The game's horror elements are full of haunting atmospheres and fewer jump scares. There are a few, but they were done well and got me good. The monster designs are well done, but not overdone and made to be unbelievable. The game straddles reality and fiction just right to make this seem like it could really happen. The story really does a good job of making Saga and Alan worthwhile and memorable characters and delves deep into their backstory and psyche. Very few AAA games can do this right. Alan Wake II is not just one of the best games of 2023, but of all time. This is how you can do a sequel without making it a full-on reboot or changing very little. The entire game rides the middle ground on every level, which makes it nearly perfect.
Alan Wake II is pretty much an entire reboot on the surface. Taking some design questions from Remedy's previous entries, like Quantum Break and Control, they have integrated the series into their "Remedyverse" (you can borrow that one if you want!). The story has an entirely new way of being told via live-action cutscenes and in real-time. The new playable character, Saga Anderson, is introduced as an FBI agent who is investigating cult murders in the town of Bright Falls. She gets sucked into the story of Alan as he tries to write his way out of his own madness and destroy the main antagonist from the first game, Scratch. The story continues that constant teetering of not making much sense and then wrapping around multiple times to have it all click, but I highly recommend playing the first game (there's a remastered version out now) before playing this one, as there are many references. I also recommend playing Control first as well, as the stories are intertwined.
The game starts out so much different than the first game. Instead of a long, drawn-out, time-ccut scene of sunshine and beauty, you are tossed straight into something straight out of Silent Hill. You're a naked, bloated man running from cultists. It's a crazy way to start a game, and it shows the cinematic quality and effort put into this game. However, you control Saga first, and this is where the first half of the game starts. You jump between Alan and Saga, but their levels are unique on their own. Saga's side is more action-oriented and collectible hunting. There are three main large areas in the game. Watery, Bright Falls, and Cauldron Lake. Bright Falls is a main hub town that you can walk around in and also find collectibles. These range from cult stashes, breaking open locks with a screwdriver or boltcutters (found later in the game), Alex Casey lunchboxes, and nursery rhymes. These are all fun to find, and they all reward you with different things. The lunchboxes give you manuscript scraps used to unlock weapon perks; the rhymes unlock charms; and the cult stashes have various usable items in them.
The combat itself is familiar from the original game, but it's more refined and feels like a solid third-person shooter. You still blast the darkness from vulnerabilities to make them vulnerable to your gunfire, but it's less frequent. Alan Wake felt like an action title and less like a survival horror due to so many enemies thrown at you at once. Like any survival horror game with guns, the best ones are locked away and require puzzle-solving skills to acquire them. Usually it's a three-digit code, and you need to figure out the clues in the room you are in. It's usually not super hard, and the answer is right in front of you. You just need to be observant. Weapons feel good to shoot, and while there aren't many, they feel unique. The pistol, shotgun (sawed-off, double-barelled, and pump variety), crossbow, revolver, and hunting rifle make up the majority of your weapons, but Saga and Alan's sides play differently even with combat.
Alan isn't a fighter. He has much more limited ammo than Saga gets and usually only has the revolver and flare gun through most of the game. The shadows usually won't attack you if you side-step them, but in some cases, they require you to fight. He has less health than Saga, and his levels are mostly backtracking puzzle-solving-style affairs. This leads me to talk about the Mind Place. This is essentially an interactive pause screen that would normally be a menu with flipping pages. It's a room that loads instantly, and you advance the story here. Saga's Mind Place is more complicated and involved. She has cases on the wall, and as you discover things, you can place evidence on said wall, and when you find everything for that chapter, the case will be solved. However, solving these cases isn't required. You just need to place the main ones to advance the story. She also has a profiling section in which she can talk to characters in her mind. This gives her ideas when she is stuck and needs to move on further. There are also areas to listen to radio programs you found, TV shows, and manuscripts.
Alan's Writer's Room is similar, but you use it less often. Instead of profiling and cases to solve, Alan can switch scenes he finds through echos found throughout the levels. These are black-and-white orbs that shimmer, and you must align them with the camera to activate the scene. This is where a lot of the puzzle-solving comes in, and honestly, it is the weakest part of the game. Switching between scenes can become frustrating because you don't know which one you need to be in to access a certain area. When you switch scenes, rooms get closed off and new ones open. This also doubles down on the light-holding feature. Alan can absorb certain bright lights that open up a new path in that room. Some areas have up to three or four lights that need to be absorbed or put back in a certain order, and it can cause frustration. I didn't like this part of Alan's story. You can switch between Saga and Alan at any time with portals in certain levels and play any chapter in any order. Alan's side is mostly cinematic adventure stuff with a lot more storytelling than Saga's. Saga has larger areas to explore (three whole large maps), and Alan is mostly confined to one small area and kept inside various buildings in a more urban setting.
Outside of the Writer's Room scene switching and the confusing mess some of the levels can be, the game is solid with a 15-20 hour play time. There is so much content in this game that it's hard to hate it. The visuals are state-of-the-art and push PCs and consoles to their absolute limits and beyond. On PC, Alan Wake II sports the latest ray-tracing and path-tracing tech and mesh shaders, which have been crippling the highest end of hardware. Unless you have a 4xxx series RTX card that can utilize the DLSS Frame Generation, you're going to struggle with ray-tracing. Even with DLSS on balanced and ray-tracing set to medium (and other settings optimized through guides online), I would dip below 60FPS at 1440p. Without ray-tracing, the game runs much better, but this is one of the few games where RTX actually makes the game a different experience.
The game's horror elements are full of haunting atmospheres and fewer jump scares. There are a few, but they were done well and got me good. The monster designs are well done, but not overdone and made to be unbelievable. The game straddles reality and fiction just right to make this seem like it could really happen. The story really does a good job of making Saga and Alan worthwhile and memorable characters and delves deep into their backstory and psyche. Very few AAA games can do this right. Alan Wake II is not just one of the best games of 2023, but of all time. This is how you can do a sequel without making it a full-on reboot or changing very little. The entire game rides the middle ground on every level, which makes it nearly perfect.
2015
Dementium is one of the saddest stories on the DS. There are very few horror games on the system, and Dementium was a hyped-up train wreck all the way to release. Renegade Kid originally pitched Dementium as a Silent Hill game on the DS. They went to Konami to show off their FPS engine running at 60 FPS. It's an impressive engine and still is today, and it's a joy to play and experience, but Dementium's tricks end after about 30 minutes, and even the remastered version doesn't add much.
The biggest issue with the original game was the insane difficulty level and lack of checkpoints. If you died, you had to restart the entire chapter, and the game is made up of claustrophobic, deja vu-enducing labyrinthine corridors that require either a detailed walkthrough and guide or pure dumb luck. The enfuriating boss fights and repeated enemies will make your head scream, and most people won't get through the first few chapters before shutting the game off. I did it back when the game originally came out. The first half of the game consists of finding items to progress, and this constant backtracking is infuriating. Each floor of the hospital looks exactly the same, and each hallway is literally repeated on multiple floors. I passed the same hallway with slugs coming out of the walls and dropping from the ceiling grates in the exact same pattern dozens of times. The same closets with the same set of boxes stacked in the exact same position will repeat several times in a row in every hallway. The same three office layouts repeat ad nauseam. It's a lazy design of copy and paste, and the last of the landmarks makes backtracking an utter nightmare.
What becomes a horror game of keeping your own sanity quickly becomes apparent once you get to the first boss fight. Bosses flash red and become invulnerable for a few seconds after each shot. This is an incredibly stupid design choice. Let me blast these guys away, as you also have limited ammo early in the game, only to become Rambo by the final few chapters. Health is also finite, as whatever you find in each hallway is. Thankfully, it's plentiful, but later chapters become endurance races. The final chapters lack any type of puzzle solving or object hunting and just see you running through dozens upon dozens of hallways, just running from enemies, hoping you find the right door that's not locked. Almost every door in this game is locked, and the clues to the right door are the ones with bloody handprints. That's even not 100% true sometimes. The remastered version adds new checkpoints and save points throughout the game, but those still aren't enough. This game needs a save anywhere feature.
There are plenty of guns, such as a pistol, revolver, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and baton. They all feel good to shoot, and the shooting mechanics are very smooth and accurate. It's a crying shame it was put to waste on this mundane slog of a mess. The remastered version also takes advantage of the dual analog controls of the 3DS, which helps as well. The final chapter of the game is a stamina rush of every enemy thrown at you numerous times just to get to a final boss that can kill you very quickly. Prepare to run through this level numerous times in sheer frustration over terror. I like the idea of switching between a gun and a flashlight, but after a while, I ran from most enemies. The same five repeat through the entire game; the novelty of a DS shooter wears off very quickly.
Overall, the visuals and atmosphere are actually memorable. The music is haunting, and the darkness creeping in around you works. There are no jump scares, and the story is non-existent outside of a few scenes. You can't even determine what's going on in this poem through written text, as there's very little of it. It's a boring, frustrating mess of a game wrapped around a fantastic game engine and haunting atmosphere. It's a shame the remaster couldn't do more than upscale the textures and add checkpoints that barely help the difficulty.
The biggest issue with the original game was the insane difficulty level and lack of checkpoints. If you died, you had to restart the entire chapter, and the game is made up of claustrophobic, deja vu-enducing labyrinthine corridors that require either a detailed walkthrough and guide or pure dumb luck. The enfuriating boss fights and repeated enemies will make your head scream, and most people won't get through the first few chapters before shutting the game off. I did it back when the game originally came out. The first half of the game consists of finding items to progress, and this constant backtracking is infuriating. Each floor of the hospital looks exactly the same, and each hallway is literally repeated on multiple floors. I passed the same hallway with slugs coming out of the walls and dropping from the ceiling grates in the exact same pattern dozens of times. The same closets with the same set of boxes stacked in the exact same position will repeat several times in a row in every hallway. The same three office layouts repeat ad nauseam. It's a lazy design of copy and paste, and the last of the landmarks makes backtracking an utter nightmare.
What becomes a horror game of keeping your own sanity quickly becomes apparent once you get to the first boss fight. Bosses flash red and become invulnerable for a few seconds after each shot. This is an incredibly stupid design choice. Let me blast these guys away, as you also have limited ammo early in the game, only to become Rambo by the final few chapters. Health is also finite, as whatever you find in each hallway is. Thankfully, it's plentiful, but later chapters become endurance races. The final chapters lack any type of puzzle solving or object hunting and just see you running through dozens upon dozens of hallways, just running from enemies, hoping you find the right door that's not locked. Almost every door in this game is locked, and the clues to the right door are the ones with bloody handprints. That's even not 100% true sometimes. The remastered version adds new checkpoints and save points throughout the game, but those still aren't enough. This game needs a save anywhere feature.
There are plenty of guns, such as a pistol, revolver, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and baton. They all feel good to shoot, and the shooting mechanics are very smooth and accurate. It's a crying shame it was put to waste on this mundane slog of a mess. The remastered version also takes advantage of the dual analog controls of the 3DS, which helps as well. The final chapter of the game is a stamina rush of every enemy thrown at you numerous times just to get to a final boss that can kill you very quickly. Prepare to run through this level numerous times in sheer frustration over terror. I like the idea of switching between a gun and a flashlight, but after a while, I ran from most enemies. The same five repeat through the entire game; the novelty of a DS shooter wears off very quickly.
Overall, the visuals and atmosphere are actually memorable. The music is haunting, and the darkness creeping in around you works. There are no jump scares, and the story is non-existent outside of a few scenes. You can't even determine what's going on in this poem through written text, as there's very little of it. It's a boring, frustrating mess of a game wrapped around a fantastic game engine and haunting atmosphere. It's a shame the remaster couldn't do more than upscale the textures and add checkpoints that barely help the difficulty.
Trials is the dominant 2.5D motocross physics game. It's a hard category to describe. I reviewed Trials 2: Second Edition over a decade ago and have loved the series ever since. RedLynx knows how to mix fast-paced gameplay with well-designed courses and tracks that are fun to master, and restarting isn't always an absolute pain. Urban Trial is a fairly decent clone of that game, but it falls flat in many areas.
Firstly, there is no story, so don't worry about that. You can just jump straight into the main campaign, which consists of five different urban environments and seven tracks in each area. To unlock the next area, you need three stars or better on every track in the previous map. This isn't too difficult. Just get through the course without crashing a lot. My issues with the game started on the second map and made me question whether I wanted to keep going, at least in a single playthrough.
The physics in Urban Trial Freestyle 2 are mostly okay, but they put you on moving platforms that the physics engine isn't great at emulating. Riding on a moving grate across a bunch of moving barrels isn't as easy as you'd think in this game. A lot of times my bike got stuck on the edges, and I couldn't pull back to get over them. Even stationary stairs are hard to get over. The physics feel almost too centered. If I push too far forward or backward, the bike loses complete control, and it's too hard to correct it. The bike also feels way too heavy once it is not completely centered. This was never an issue in trials. The tracks are also haphazardly laid out, with too many steep jumps next to each other, so it makes it hard to gauge how to take each ramp.
There is some sort of jump scoring gauge that was never explained, and I couldn't quite figure it out. When you approach a certain jump, a couple of green bars will float around, and your rider will make a comment that he made it or didn't. I don't understand what this was for, and it seemed pointless in the end. It's hard to pull tricks on these bikes with the physics the way they are.
There are cash icons to grab in each level, but I was never interested in getting these as the unlockables are pretty lame. You can customize your dude and bike, but the options are very limited. Just a few colors and clothing items (I mean less than 10 each), and they cost a lot of money, so it's not worth it. This felt like a throw-in at the last minute to make it feel more like a sequel or something. There is a freestyle mode where you can do stunts, but with the wonky physics, it's kind of hard. There is also a track editor mode, which isn't intuitive at all. It requires a lot of trial and error to get everything placed right, and with the weird physics, it just isn't worth the effort. I feel this is for kids who have nothing else to play and got this on sale and are just bored.
The visuals are actually pretty good, with decent textures and a lot of detail in the environments, and there wasn't really any slowdown that I noticed. I wish the music was better and there were more ambient sounds like in Trials, but for a budget eShop game, this is actually not that bad. What's here is fun to fill a couple of evenings, and if you are itching for a Trials game, then you can't do much harm with this game. If the physics felt more balanced and the track design was a lot better, it could go a long way toward really competing with Trials. The track editor is passable, and the unlockables feel thrown in at the last minute. All this game made me want to do is go back and play a much better Trials game, but for a few dollars it's harmless.
Firstly, there is no story, so don't worry about that. You can just jump straight into the main campaign, which consists of five different urban environments and seven tracks in each area. To unlock the next area, you need three stars or better on every track in the previous map. This isn't too difficult. Just get through the course without crashing a lot. My issues with the game started on the second map and made me question whether I wanted to keep going, at least in a single playthrough.
The physics in Urban Trial Freestyle 2 are mostly okay, but they put you on moving platforms that the physics engine isn't great at emulating. Riding on a moving grate across a bunch of moving barrels isn't as easy as you'd think in this game. A lot of times my bike got stuck on the edges, and I couldn't pull back to get over them. Even stationary stairs are hard to get over. The physics feel almost too centered. If I push too far forward or backward, the bike loses complete control, and it's too hard to correct it. The bike also feels way too heavy once it is not completely centered. This was never an issue in trials. The tracks are also haphazardly laid out, with too many steep jumps next to each other, so it makes it hard to gauge how to take each ramp.
There is some sort of jump scoring gauge that was never explained, and I couldn't quite figure it out. When you approach a certain jump, a couple of green bars will float around, and your rider will make a comment that he made it or didn't. I don't understand what this was for, and it seemed pointless in the end. It's hard to pull tricks on these bikes with the physics the way they are.
There are cash icons to grab in each level, but I was never interested in getting these as the unlockables are pretty lame. You can customize your dude and bike, but the options are very limited. Just a few colors and clothing items (I mean less than 10 each), and they cost a lot of money, so it's not worth it. This felt like a throw-in at the last minute to make it feel more like a sequel or something. There is a freestyle mode where you can do stunts, but with the wonky physics, it's kind of hard. There is also a track editor mode, which isn't intuitive at all. It requires a lot of trial and error to get everything placed right, and with the weird physics, it just isn't worth the effort. I feel this is for kids who have nothing else to play and got this on sale and are just bored.
The visuals are actually pretty good, with decent textures and a lot of detail in the environments, and there wasn't really any slowdown that I noticed. I wish the music was better and there were more ambient sounds like in Trials, but for a budget eShop game, this is actually not that bad. What's here is fun to fill a couple of evenings, and if you are itching for a Trials game, then you can't do much harm with this game. If the physics felt more balanced and the track design was a lot better, it could go a long way toward really competing with Trials. The track editor is passable, and the unlockables feel thrown in at the last minute. All this game made me want to do is go back and play a much better Trials game, but for a few dollars it's harmless.
Rhythm Heaven has always been a difficult game to master. This isn't Warioware or Hatsune Miku. This game requires precise timing, and you must be really in tune with the beat. I had to physically tap my foot or nod my head to keep myself in rhythm for some of these minigames.
The game has a typical Nintendo-esque storyline in the vein of Warioware, with goofy characters. The art style is nice and cute, with skippable dialogue, which most people will probably do. Each section contains four mini-games that you must pass to move on to the next set of four mini-games. These games are some new and mostly old from the previous two games. Mini-games require you to press the A or B button or tap the stylus (this is an optional alternative). Being on the beat is a bit more forgiving than previous mini-games, and scoring is a lot more generous. If you are just a couple of points from passing, the game will give them to you out of pity, and the boss stages will let you pass if you spend 30 coins for at least trying. My biggest gripe with the previous games was the lockout from progression, which would make you want to quit playing.
My favorite mini-games are the ones that have something physical to track. The LumberBear one is a perfect example. Logs get laid out in front of you, and each mini-game has a second type of beat to follow. There is usually a fast-paced rhythm and then one where it requires longer pauses or rapid-fire button presses (in the form of three most of the time). The first tower you play is actually much harder than the later towers because the second version of these mini-games is longer, which allows you to miss more and still pass. There is a practice mode before each game starts and if you miss too much the bottom screen will show a rhythm pattern for you to follow. This helps as some patterns are just hard to get down. Again, another way for the series to be more forgiving this time around.
There are some mini-games I was just terrible at or weren't designed in a way that made staying on beat intuitive. There is always a visual or audio cue, but sometimes the mini-games will trick you and pull the camera out, obscure your view, or cut the audio, and this requires mastering the mini-game. It all becomes muscle memory at a certain point. This isn't a casual rhythm game or mini-game compilation like we're used to. Can we call this a hardcore rhythm game?
You can unlock trophies and other extra mini-games in the museum and cafe. This never really interested me, as this isn't a game I wanted to finish 100%. Once you finally finish the story mode, there's no real reason to come back to this game unless you really love punishment. I found this game wasn't relaxing at all for how tense and focused you have to be to play it and pass the story stages. Even with the goofy characters and skippable dialogue, the story mode is quite long, with seven towers to finish. The graphics are great, and each mini-game looks unique and charming. This has that wacky Nintendo signature all over it. If you disliked previous Rhythm Heaven games, I would give this a shot since it is more forgiving and the timing has been somewhat refined.
The game has a typical Nintendo-esque storyline in the vein of Warioware, with goofy characters. The art style is nice and cute, with skippable dialogue, which most people will probably do. Each section contains four mini-games that you must pass to move on to the next set of four mini-games. These games are some new and mostly old from the previous two games. Mini-games require you to press the A or B button or tap the stylus (this is an optional alternative). Being on the beat is a bit more forgiving than previous mini-games, and scoring is a lot more generous. If you are just a couple of points from passing, the game will give them to you out of pity, and the boss stages will let you pass if you spend 30 coins for at least trying. My biggest gripe with the previous games was the lockout from progression, which would make you want to quit playing.
My favorite mini-games are the ones that have something physical to track. The LumberBear one is a perfect example. Logs get laid out in front of you, and each mini-game has a second type of beat to follow. There is usually a fast-paced rhythm and then one where it requires longer pauses or rapid-fire button presses (in the form of three most of the time). The first tower you play is actually much harder than the later towers because the second version of these mini-games is longer, which allows you to miss more and still pass. There is a practice mode before each game starts and if you miss too much the bottom screen will show a rhythm pattern for you to follow. This helps as some patterns are just hard to get down. Again, another way for the series to be more forgiving this time around.
There are some mini-games I was just terrible at or weren't designed in a way that made staying on beat intuitive. There is always a visual or audio cue, but sometimes the mini-games will trick you and pull the camera out, obscure your view, or cut the audio, and this requires mastering the mini-game. It all becomes muscle memory at a certain point. This isn't a casual rhythm game or mini-game compilation like we're used to. Can we call this a hardcore rhythm game?
You can unlock trophies and other extra mini-games in the museum and cafe. This never really interested me, as this isn't a game I wanted to finish 100%. Once you finally finish the story mode, there's no real reason to come back to this game unless you really love punishment. I found this game wasn't relaxing at all for how tense and focused you have to be to play it and pass the story stages. Even with the goofy characters and skippable dialogue, the story mode is quite long, with seven towers to finish. The graphics are great, and each mini-game looks unique and charming. This has that wacky Nintendo signature all over it. If you disliked previous Rhythm Heaven games, I would give this a shot since it is more forgiving and the timing has been somewhat refined.
This is my first time playing a Mario & Sonic Olympic game outside of an arcade room. The series never appealed to me, and it's been around for what seems like forever. They never reviewed very well; they all looked and seemed to be too similar, and they felt aimed at kids. A mini-game-style game set around the Olympics is usually something you can blow off. Anything Olympic-branded is most likely hot garbage, but there is something here.
The 3DS version of the game has a story mode, unlike the Wii version. The mini-games are also hand-tailored for a more pick-up-and-go style and are much shorter. The story mode is quite simply dead-ass boring and a complete snooze fest. There was zero effort put into it, and there is no reason to play it other than to get used to some mini-games. The basic premise is that Mario and Sonic can't start the opening ceremony because Bowser and Dr. Eggman have set off a fog machine that produces evil versions of everyone. The cutscenes last way too long, sometimes up to five minutes, and consist of characters standing around grunting, showing emotes, and yapping about a whole lot of nothing. All of your usual Sonic and Mario characters appear, such as Team Chaotix, Princess Peach and Daisy, Yoshi, and Metal Sonic. That means absolutely nothing. When everyone is done running their mouths, you can pick a challenge. Some challenges are one event only; some can be more. There are five chapters in the story mode and then bonus chapters focusing on Bowser Jr. after the fog has cleared.
There are a lot of mini-games, so I will give the game credit there, and they are varied. You use everything in the 3DS to play these games. Shooting mini-games uses the gyroscope and the shoulder buttons; swimming might have you partially rotating the circle pad. A swimming game has you using the touch screen with your fingers. Some require timing and reflexes, but I felt some were pure dumb luck unless you played against an actual person. Some mini-games are just hard to understand, with about four screens of instructions before each game starts. This makes the story mode drag on, as you just want to jump in. I don't need to confirm three times and get instructions more than once. Even restarting an event resets all of this, and it's back to confirming everything. It drove me crazy.
Mini-games play fine on normal difficulty, but hard feels nearly impossible. Not one mini-game ever feels right or perfected. Some feel sluggish and unresponsive; others are hard to grasp and take multiple tries to understand. Some I never quite knew what was causing me to fail, such as the BMX sport excusive to the 3DS. You press A to jump, but you need to tilt the 3DS to land flat. I could never figure this out and always landed wrong, no matter what I did. Games that require timing, such as fighting sports, just get frustrating because it seems the CPU knows what you pressed, and it's a dice roll as to whether it fails. This is most notable in table tennis and badminton. I would get 50 rallies on one match and fail, but the next serve, the CPU would fail in 3 rallies. It never felt fair.
It got to a point in the story mode that I avoided the timing and reflex mini-games and went straight for ones that required physical ability to win, such as blowing into the mic, tapping a button really fast, or using the stylus. When you finally beat the story mode, you can mix and match event types through unlocked playlists or create your own. Once you've played every game a few times, there's no reason to keep playing against the CPU. This game really needs a second player to feel fun, but then you still run into issues with sluggish controls, and the game never quite gives you the control you need or that would make the mini-game feel more organic.
The visuals are pretty good for a 3DS title, but they're nothing special to write home about. Textures and character models look pretty decent, but it's your typical Sonic or Mario visual style, which can feel pretty boring around this point in time. I wish the story mode was better and wasn't geared towards pre-schoolers, and there are a few really fun games in here, but they are buried by the sheer weight of many other sub-par games.
The 3DS version of the game has a story mode, unlike the Wii version. The mini-games are also hand-tailored for a more pick-up-and-go style and are much shorter. The story mode is quite simply dead-ass boring and a complete snooze fest. There was zero effort put into it, and there is no reason to play it other than to get used to some mini-games. The basic premise is that Mario and Sonic can't start the opening ceremony because Bowser and Dr. Eggman have set off a fog machine that produces evil versions of everyone. The cutscenes last way too long, sometimes up to five minutes, and consist of characters standing around grunting, showing emotes, and yapping about a whole lot of nothing. All of your usual Sonic and Mario characters appear, such as Team Chaotix, Princess Peach and Daisy, Yoshi, and Metal Sonic. That means absolutely nothing. When everyone is done running their mouths, you can pick a challenge. Some challenges are one event only; some can be more. There are five chapters in the story mode and then bonus chapters focusing on Bowser Jr. after the fog has cleared.
There are a lot of mini-games, so I will give the game credit there, and they are varied. You use everything in the 3DS to play these games. Shooting mini-games uses the gyroscope and the shoulder buttons; swimming might have you partially rotating the circle pad. A swimming game has you using the touch screen with your fingers. Some require timing and reflexes, but I felt some were pure dumb luck unless you played against an actual person. Some mini-games are just hard to understand, with about four screens of instructions before each game starts. This makes the story mode drag on, as you just want to jump in. I don't need to confirm three times and get instructions more than once. Even restarting an event resets all of this, and it's back to confirming everything. It drove me crazy.
Mini-games play fine on normal difficulty, but hard feels nearly impossible. Not one mini-game ever feels right or perfected. Some feel sluggish and unresponsive; others are hard to grasp and take multiple tries to understand. Some I never quite knew what was causing me to fail, such as the BMX sport excusive to the 3DS. You press A to jump, but you need to tilt the 3DS to land flat. I could never figure this out and always landed wrong, no matter what I did. Games that require timing, such as fighting sports, just get frustrating because it seems the CPU knows what you pressed, and it's a dice roll as to whether it fails. This is most notable in table tennis and badminton. I would get 50 rallies on one match and fail, but the next serve, the CPU would fail in 3 rallies. It never felt fair.
It got to a point in the story mode that I avoided the timing and reflex mini-games and went straight for ones that required physical ability to win, such as blowing into the mic, tapping a button really fast, or using the stylus. When you finally beat the story mode, you can mix and match event types through unlocked playlists or create your own. Once you've played every game a few times, there's no reason to keep playing against the CPU. This game really needs a second player to feel fun, but then you still run into issues with sluggish controls, and the game never quite gives you the control you need or that would make the mini-game feel more organic.
The visuals are pretty good for a 3DS title, but they're nothing special to write home about. Textures and character models look pretty decent, but it's your typical Sonic or Mario visual style, which can feel pretty boring around this point in time. I wish the story mode was better and wasn't geared towards pre-schoolers, and there are a few really fun games in here, but they are buried by the sheer weight of many other sub-par games.
2006
I remember seeing the trailer for this game during the PS3 reveal when Sony briefed the world on their latest console. The trailer blew my mind. No one knew if it was real-time gameplay footage or not. I remember being impressed by the mud deformation effects and how light reflected off the water in the mud. After playing this game, I realized that it never looked anything like that or that the trailer was pre-rendered. MotorStorm still looks pretty good even today, but there are other problems than my foggy memory.
The game is fairly basic, but for a first-time effort for a new franchise, the game isn't too bad. This was also what feels like a slightly rushed title to get it out the door for the PS3's launch (which it missed). The game consists of only circuit races around nine different tracks. The draw of MotorStorm is the different vehicle types and how they interact with the terrain. There are trophy trucks, rally cars, buggies, motorbikes, ATVs, and even big rigs. Each vehicle does feel unique, and the interaction works in terms of agility and jump height. There are different paths on each track that are best suited for a different vehicle type. Motorbikes are best at jumping large gaps, but big rigs won't make the jump. Buggies are great at lots of small bumps, but some cars might slow down a lot here. There are even areas with a lot of junk that you have to maneuver around, or you will crash.
Crashing is incredibly annoying in this game. Every crash activates a slo-mo cam, and you can't skip this. Your car resets back to where you crashed, but the game has some serious rubber-band AI as you fall way behind after just a couple of crashes, and sometimes you can't catch up depending on your vehicle. You have to memorize each track well and master them to get first place, or even think about qualifying. Sharp hairpin turns can send you off a cliff; the wrong path can slow you down too much if you're not in the right type of vehicle; and the signs posted on some tracks for the vehicle aren't helpful. I wish there was a vehicle recommendation during the ticket selection so I didn't have to trial and error with each vehicle. Vehicles are also all the same in each category. You get to pick between three styles and three colors. There are no stats at all. Annoyingly, each vehicle must load in during a real-time vehicle selection screen.
The main campaign is played by advancing in tickets by winning points. You must place third or better in each race to continue. There are 25 tickets and up to five races in each ticket. Races all have three laps, so you can imagine it gets tedious. And boy, does it. The same tracks repeat over and over again with no variation in even types. Why not drag races? How about tracks with lots of jumps? Something, anything, to break up the monotony. After tickets 7-8, I got tired of the game and shut it off for good. By then, I had finished around 40 races and had raced every track multiple times.
That's another big issue with this game. The tracks are all similar. There are only desert or dirt tracks that mostly look the same. It's just dead brown flat textures with nothing in between. The layouts themselves, in terms of jumps, turns, dangers, etc., are well done. Once I learned a track, it felt good to race around flawlessly and know what paths were best for the vehicle I picked, but after 3–4 times on each track, I got tired of it. Not to mention having to constantly restart the same one over and over again (some were a dozen times) because one crash too many made me fall too far behind. You need to flawlessly race around these tracks, and it can get super frustrating and punishing.
MotorStorm has a lot of potential to be a great arcade racing series. There needs to be more focus on terrain deformation, more track and event type variety, and a bigger distinguishing difference between vehicle types. I also felt the menus were sluggish with constant loading, and the game suffered from texture pop-in a lot, but in the actual races, the gameplay and framerate were smooth. Can we also get another color in the sequel besides brown, please? Please, and thank you.
The game is fairly basic, but for a first-time effort for a new franchise, the game isn't too bad. This was also what feels like a slightly rushed title to get it out the door for the PS3's launch (which it missed). The game consists of only circuit races around nine different tracks. The draw of MotorStorm is the different vehicle types and how they interact with the terrain. There are trophy trucks, rally cars, buggies, motorbikes, ATVs, and even big rigs. Each vehicle does feel unique, and the interaction works in terms of agility and jump height. There are different paths on each track that are best suited for a different vehicle type. Motorbikes are best at jumping large gaps, but big rigs won't make the jump. Buggies are great at lots of small bumps, but some cars might slow down a lot here. There are even areas with a lot of junk that you have to maneuver around, or you will crash.
Crashing is incredibly annoying in this game. Every crash activates a slo-mo cam, and you can't skip this. Your car resets back to where you crashed, but the game has some serious rubber-band AI as you fall way behind after just a couple of crashes, and sometimes you can't catch up depending on your vehicle. You have to memorize each track well and master them to get first place, or even think about qualifying. Sharp hairpin turns can send you off a cliff; the wrong path can slow you down too much if you're not in the right type of vehicle; and the signs posted on some tracks for the vehicle aren't helpful. I wish there was a vehicle recommendation during the ticket selection so I didn't have to trial and error with each vehicle. Vehicles are also all the same in each category. You get to pick between three styles and three colors. There are no stats at all. Annoyingly, each vehicle must load in during a real-time vehicle selection screen.
The main campaign is played by advancing in tickets by winning points. You must place third or better in each race to continue. There are 25 tickets and up to five races in each ticket. Races all have three laps, so you can imagine it gets tedious. And boy, does it. The same tracks repeat over and over again with no variation in even types. Why not drag races? How about tracks with lots of jumps? Something, anything, to break up the monotony. After tickets 7-8, I got tired of the game and shut it off for good. By then, I had finished around 40 races and had raced every track multiple times.
That's another big issue with this game. The tracks are all similar. There are only desert or dirt tracks that mostly look the same. It's just dead brown flat textures with nothing in between. The layouts themselves, in terms of jumps, turns, dangers, etc., are well done. Once I learned a track, it felt good to race around flawlessly and know what paths were best for the vehicle I picked, but after 3–4 times on each track, I got tired of it. Not to mention having to constantly restart the same one over and over again (some were a dozen times) because one crash too many made me fall too far behind. You need to flawlessly race around these tracks, and it can get super frustrating and punishing.
MotorStorm has a lot of potential to be a great arcade racing series. There needs to be more focus on terrain deformation, more track and event type variety, and a bigger distinguishing difference between vehicle types. I also felt the menus were sluggish with constant loading, and the game suffered from texture pop-in a lot, but in the actual races, the gameplay and framerate were smooth. Can we also get another color in the sequel besides brown, please? Please, and thank you.
I never thought that a GTA game would be in handheld format. We had the original two games on the GBA, but that was kind of expected. Chinatown Wars is a brand new hand-tailored experience for the DS and later shoehorned onto the PSP. There are touch-screen controls, a whole new interface, and mini-games galore. This game feels like what GTA 3 would have been if it hadn't gone full 3D. You get the over-the-top perspective, but everything is still in 3D. The game looks really good for a DS game and feels like a unique GTA experience.
The story is your typical GTA gangster revenge story. You play as Huang, whose father was murdered for an ancient sword that was passed down to mark the next mob boss leader. Huang flies to Liberty City to avenge his father's death, get to the bottom of the Triad and gang squabbling, and get that sword back to help his uncle move to the top. The story is full of deceit, betrayal, deception, and revenge and is mostly uninteresting. It doesn't have the charisma, flair, or flavor that the console versions have, mostly due to the lack of voice acting. The story is told through stills and text, which makes sense on the DS, but definitely doesn't give the characters any well-being. Many of the mob members are stereotypical drug and sex addicts, power-hungry, stupid, and Huang can't trust anyone. The story has around 50 missions, and they play out similar to the console version.
The main interface is custom for the DS. You get a PDA-style screen that you can touch. The map is displayed here as well as your radio stations, throwables, and weapon switching, and the menu in the PDA will show your trade info, emails, settings, stats, etc. It's very intuitive and just makes sense. New story missions are given via red emails. These will also give you a shortcut to place a waypoint on the map leading to that new story. There are a lot of quality-of-life things like this thrown in. The GPS map has shortcuts for everything you need, from odd jobs to your safehouses. You can also order ammo and weapons from Ammu-Nation on the PDA as well. They show up at your house, and you get an email telling you when it's ready.
Running around the world of Liberty City feels lively because of the limitations put in place. You can run and jack cars, drive off and kill everyone on the road, and gain your infamous wanted stars. Stars can be dropped by making police cars crash, which will help lower your wanted meter faster. I did feel there were way too many cops around in this game. It seemed every 5–10 cars was a cop car or a pig walking around. I was constantly caught carjacking or running over someone, and I was always running into cop cars. This felt way overdone in this game. Driving around Liberty City does feel great. The game never slows down, and the ambient sound effects of the original radio tunes (they're instrumental and not licensed due to space limitations on the DS carts) make it feel like a living and breathing GTA game on the go.
Missions are varied, but some elements of missions can get quite annoying, causing multiple deaths and restarts. The auto-lock-on feature for shooting isn't that great. You don't always lock on to the closest enemy or an enemy at all. This caused many deaths when I locked onto a car instead of a person shooting at me. You can roll around and dodge people, but many times I was stuck without a weapon and would have to order something from Ammu-Nation, go to my safehouse, wait, pick it up, and go back and restart the mission. Thankfully, you can trip skip if you get to a certain point in longer missions, which saves you time, and you can skip cutscenes. A lot of mini-games surround missions, such as tapping the screen to break locks, mini-games to use cranes, plant bombs, scratch cards, tattoing, and many others. These were a lot of fun, and I was always looking forward to the next one. However, trying to jack a car and being stuck in a mini-game of hot starting it for the 100th time got old and would make me get busted as you can't back out of it. Most missions vary from shooting, following, and chasing, and some put you on turrets or throw bombs out of a car. Overall, the mission variety is awesome, and I never got bored.
The biggest setback in the game is the new feature of drug dealing. You can use your PDA to see the drug turf map for who buys and sells what. This is required to actually make money for weapons and sometimes even start missions. Some missions require a certain drug type or a large amount of cash. This means setting a GPS waypoint for a dealer who sells said drug and buying some from them. You need to make large profits, so it's best to wait for an email when a dealer is selling at a discount and then turn around and sell it. This takes a lot of time—driving around and waiting around, however. Buying and selling drugs at market value won't get you anywhere. Odd jobs can give you a few bucks, but they don't pay out enough. This really slows the game down and hampers an otherwise fast-paced game.
When it comes to visuals, the game really shines on the DS. There are small, subtle things, like street lights turning off when you hit the poles. Weather patterns such as lightning strikes casting shadows on the ground, sparks, fire effects, and even being able to close the driver door if it's still open while driving (let go of the accelerator and Huang will close the door). These small changes help make this a high-quality DS experience and set it above the rest in terms of production values. Chinatown Wars may have a forgettable story and characters, some control issues when shooting, some frustrating missions, and a drug dealing mechanic that hinders more than helps, but overall the game is miles above what I thought a portable GTA game could be and in some ways feels better than the PSP GTA games.
The story is your typical GTA gangster revenge story. You play as Huang, whose father was murdered for an ancient sword that was passed down to mark the next mob boss leader. Huang flies to Liberty City to avenge his father's death, get to the bottom of the Triad and gang squabbling, and get that sword back to help his uncle move to the top. The story is full of deceit, betrayal, deception, and revenge and is mostly uninteresting. It doesn't have the charisma, flair, or flavor that the console versions have, mostly due to the lack of voice acting. The story is told through stills and text, which makes sense on the DS, but definitely doesn't give the characters any well-being. Many of the mob members are stereotypical drug and sex addicts, power-hungry, stupid, and Huang can't trust anyone. The story has around 50 missions, and they play out similar to the console version.
The main interface is custom for the DS. You get a PDA-style screen that you can touch. The map is displayed here as well as your radio stations, throwables, and weapon switching, and the menu in the PDA will show your trade info, emails, settings, stats, etc. It's very intuitive and just makes sense. New story missions are given via red emails. These will also give you a shortcut to place a waypoint on the map leading to that new story. There are a lot of quality-of-life things like this thrown in. The GPS map has shortcuts for everything you need, from odd jobs to your safehouses. You can also order ammo and weapons from Ammu-Nation on the PDA as well. They show up at your house, and you get an email telling you when it's ready.
Running around the world of Liberty City feels lively because of the limitations put in place. You can run and jack cars, drive off and kill everyone on the road, and gain your infamous wanted stars. Stars can be dropped by making police cars crash, which will help lower your wanted meter faster. I did feel there were way too many cops around in this game. It seemed every 5–10 cars was a cop car or a pig walking around. I was constantly caught carjacking or running over someone, and I was always running into cop cars. This felt way overdone in this game. Driving around Liberty City does feel great. The game never slows down, and the ambient sound effects of the original radio tunes (they're instrumental and not licensed due to space limitations on the DS carts) make it feel like a living and breathing GTA game on the go.
Missions are varied, but some elements of missions can get quite annoying, causing multiple deaths and restarts. The auto-lock-on feature for shooting isn't that great. You don't always lock on to the closest enemy or an enemy at all. This caused many deaths when I locked onto a car instead of a person shooting at me. You can roll around and dodge people, but many times I was stuck without a weapon and would have to order something from Ammu-Nation, go to my safehouse, wait, pick it up, and go back and restart the mission. Thankfully, you can trip skip if you get to a certain point in longer missions, which saves you time, and you can skip cutscenes. A lot of mini-games surround missions, such as tapping the screen to break locks, mini-games to use cranes, plant bombs, scratch cards, tattoing, and many others. These were a lot of fun, and I was always looking forward to the next one. However, trying to jack a car and being stuck in a mini-game of hot starting it for the 100th time got old and would make me get busted as you can't back out of it. Most missions vary from shooting, following, and chasing, and some put you on turrets or throw bombs out of a car. Overall, the mission variety is awesome, and I never got bored.
The biggest setback in the game is the new feature of drug dealing. You can use your PDA to see the drug turf map for who buys and sells what. This is required to actually make money for weapons and sometimes even start missions. Some missions require a certain drug type or a large amount of cash. This means setting a GPS waypoint for a dealer who sells said drug and buying some from them. You need to make large profits, so it's best to wait for an email when a dealer is selling at a discount and then turn around and sell it. This takes a lot of time—driving around and waiting around, however. Buying and selling drugs at market value won't get you anywhere. Odd jobs can give you a few bucks, but they don't pay out enough. This really slows the game down and hampers an otherwise fast-paced game.
When it comes to visuals, the game really shines on the DS. There are small, subtle things, like street lights turning off when you hit the poles. Weather patterns such as lightning strikes casting shadows on the ground, sparks, fire effects, and even being able to close the driver door if it's still open while driving (let go of the accelerator and Huang will close the door). These small changes help make this a high-quality DS experience and set it above the rest in terms of production values. Chinatown Wars may have a forgettable story and characters, some control issues when shooting, some frustrating missions, and a drug dealing mechanic that hinders more than helps, but overall the game is miles above what I thought a portable GTA game could be and in some ways feels better than the PSP GTA games.
2023
The game is broken up into two gameplay styles. An adventure/walking simulator-style mansion exploration where you solve puzzles. This part of the game is rather dull and uninteresting. Many other games do house explorations better (Layers of Fear, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch) as the game slowly opens the house to you, but the key is to find objects to solve puzzles and find something that triggers a dive into Paul's mind and thoughts. Each chapter (there are three) consists of one of his family members represented as a horrific monster. You can either choose to kill them or let them live to get different endings. Most of these "boss fights" require you to flip switches and run away for the most part, but they are rather intense, so I didn't mind them.
The second part of the game is the trenches gameplay, in which the horror part sets in. You need to run around solving the occasional puzzle while also hiding from enemies. There is no combat in this game, so you have to sneak around and find your way through the dark in various environments. The creature designs are awesome, but this is probably the most exciting part of the game. It was intense sneaking past enemies, and thankfully there's only one small section in each chapter, but the horror elements that are actually good can be counted on one hand. There are moments in which each main monster is introduced, and these scenes are fairly creepy, and outside of weird sound effects and haunting ambience, there's not much else here. The game does portray the gruesome horrors of the war, with bodies spread everywhere, the barbaric medical practices, and the overall brutal nature of everything people endured during that time.
With the game being as linear as it is, there isn't a lot of room for exploration outside of finding dog tags, and this only grants an achievement. There are a few extra gameplay items you can find, such as a pickaxe to break down walls, a dynamo flashlight, a gas mask, and wire cutters to cut down barbed wire, which is actually quite annoying. The barbed wire moves and is related to the story (I won't spoil why), and you have to cut the non-moving wire or it will grab you, and that will trigger a quick-time event. This could have been done better. To be completely honest, all of these items don't really add anything to the game. The gas mask is used a few times to get through corridors with some gas, and it lasts a few seconds. The flashlight is annoying to use, as it only lights up for a few seconds before needing to be charged again.
The game overall isn't very exciting. The horror elements fall flat, and the walking simulator-style gameplay is void of almost any gameplay. The story itself is convoluted and difficult to figure out if you don't read the papers spread throughout the game. The visuals are at least good, if not necessarily unique or interesting, because of the monster designs. There are nice lighting effects, but the character models are something to be desired. The mansion areas are also a chore to play through, and it just feels like mindless wandering through rooms to find objects.
Overall, Ad Infinitum doesn't do anything particularly well or is interesting enough to not be forgettable. There are some good horror moments, but they aren't anything special, and the game overall lacks a cohesive story or a way to tell it. There are many games out there that are similar and do a better job of everything listed.
The second part of the game is the trenches gameplay, in which the horror part sets in. You need to run around solving the occasional puzzle while also hiding from enemies. There is no combat in this game, so you have to sneak around and find your way through the dark in various environments. The creature designs are awesome, but this is probably the most exciting part of the game. It was intense sneaking past enemies, and thankfully there's only one small section in each chapter, but the horror elements that are actually good can be counted on one hand. There are moments in which each main monster is introduced, and these scenes are fairly creepy, and outside of weird sound effects and haunting ambience, there's not much else here. The game does portray the gruesome horrors of the war, with bodies spread everywhere, the barbaric medical practices, and the overall brutal nature of everything people endured during that time.
With the game being as linear as it is, there isn't a lot of room for exploration outside of finding dog tags, and this only grants an achievement. There are a few extra gameplay items you can find, such as a pickaxe to break down walls, a dynamo flashlight, a gas mask, and wire cutters to cut down barbed wire, which is actually quite annoying. The barbed wire moves and is related to the story (I won't spoil why), and you have to cut the non-moving wire or it will grab you, and that will trigger a quick-time event. This could have been done better. To be completely honest, all of these items don't really add anything to the game. The gas mask is used a few times to get through corridors with some gas, and it lasts a few seconds. The flashlight is annoying to use, as it only lights up for a few seconds before needing to be charged again.
The game overall isn't very exciting. The horror elements fall flat, and the walking simulator-style gameplay is void of almost any gameplay. The story itself is convoluted and difficult to figure out if you don't read the papers spread throughout the game. The visuals are at least good, if not necessarily unique or interesting, because of the monster designs. There are nice lighting effects, but the character models are something to be desired. The mansion areas are also a chore to play through, and it just feels like mindless wandering through rooms to find objects.
Overall, Ad Infinitum doesn't do anything particularly well or is interesting enough to not be forgettable. There are some good horror moments, but they aren't anything special, and the game overall lacks a cohesive story or a way to tell it. There are many games out there that are similar and do a better job of everything listed.
While the main next-gen console version of the game is considered to be an all-time classic and helped revolutionize the online FPS genre, the lower-powered hardware versions were completely different games. While they share the same name, you wouldn't know these were Call of Duty games if you played them and no one told you.
Modern Warfare for the DS loosely follows the plot of the main game but instead takes liberty with its own unique levels and design choices. Obviously, we are working with barely better-than-PS1-level hardware here. n-Space really had to be creative and make entirely new games, mostly "themed" around the franchise. The game is still in first-person view, and you can switch between two different weapons. By default, you always start out with a pistol and another firearm. You can pick up weapons with the touch screen (a hand icon) and use that as your main weapon will not have any extra ammo available when you run out unless you die. When you die, you start out with your default weapons again and lose whatever you picked up, but your ammo is refilled. Weapons in this game feel decent, but the slowdown from the DS being pushed too hard (especially when enemies pop in) makes aiming a bit sluggish and janky.
Aiming with the touch screen feels fine. Using the D-pad or face buttons to strafe isn't an issue either, but using the R or L button to fire can give you massive hand cramps even with larger DS systems. Most everything is controlled by the touch screen. Double-tap to bring up the ADS (Aim Down Sights), switch to grenades, and tap the weapon icon to reload. There are a few quality of life things that n-space did think of, such as when you reload, you go back to ADS if you are in that mode already, and spriting pulls you out of ADS mode. My issue with ADS is that while it's more accurate, there's a delay in bringing it up on screen, and that delay can cost you your life. When enemies pop in and the slowdown happens, it won't respond to my double-taps fast enough, and I would constantly bring up the ADS and back out a few times caused by the delay. It's not game-breaking, but very annoying.
There are two mini-games when setting explosives and defusing bombs. I found the pipe puzzles annoying, and following the wires to defuse bombs isn't really fun or challenging. These were just thrown in here to make use of the touch screen. Honestly, who wants to solve puzzles while playing Call of Duty? It's weird and just doesn't fit. It really breaks the flow of combat. The enemy AI is also pretty dumb. Enemies just stand there and shoot at you; don't take cover or move out of the way. This is literally an on-rails shooting gallery and is insanely linear. Levels are way too long, and some objectives have unfair checkpoint placements or none at all. Objectives range from collecting something to planting a bomb or just shooting everything in sight. I found the scripted mounted machine gun levels pretty fun, but the AC-130 level (similar to the console version) is awful and boring. You can barely make out any enemies, and you can't use larger weapons against smaller enemies. There are only a couple of buildings to blow up, and you just mow down dozens of enemies over and over again in almost complete silence. It was a bad level, for sure.
The visuals are decent for what the system can do. They are definitely sterile and boring to look at, with no artistic flair. The game tried capturing the hyper-realism of the consoles, and the DS just can't quite do this. It's a very brown and beige-looking game. There's no personality put into this game. It feels like a copy-and-paste FPS that you could attach any name to. Multiplayer is the same as single-player, but with another person. It's not very exciting, and your friends will get bored fast. I appreciate n-space for trying to capture the excitement of the console versions on the limited hardware, but it needs something else. Better enemy AI, less linear-feeling levels, more interesting scripted levels, and fewer storyboard-cut scenes. It's a great first start, but it has a lot of work before it becomes a staple DS shooter.
Modern Warfare for the DS loosely follows the plot of the main game but instead takes liberty with its own unique levels and design choices. Obviously, we are working with barely better-than-PS1-level hardware here. n-Space really had to be creative and make entirely new games, mostly "themed" around the franchise. The game is still in first-person view, and you can switch between two different weapons. By default, you always start out with a pistol and another firearm. You can pick up weapons with the touch screen (a hand icon) and use that as your main weapon will not have any extra ammo available when you run out unless you die. When you die, you start out with your default weapons again and lose whatever you picked up, but your ammo is refilled. Weapons in this game feel decent, but the slowdown from the DS being pushed too hard (especially when enemies pop in) makes aiming a bit sluggish and janky.
Aiming with the touch screen feels fine. Using the D-pad or face buttons to strafe isn't an issue either, but using the R or L button to fire can give you massive hand cramps even with larger DS systems. Most everything is controlled by the touch screen. Double-tap to bring up the ADS (Aim Down Sights), switch to grenades, and tap the weapon icon to reload. There are a few quality of life things that n-space did think of, such as when you reload, you go back to ADS if you are in that mode already, and spriting pulls you out of ADS mode. My issue with ADS is that while it's more accurate, there's a delay in bringing it up on screen, and that delay can cost you your life. When enemies pop in and the slowdown happens, it won't respond to my double-taps fast enough, and I would constantly bring up the ADS and back out a few times caused by the delay. It's not game-breaking, but very annoying.
There are two mini-games when setting explosives and defusing bombs. I found the pipe puzzles annoying, and following the wires to defuse bombs isn't really fun or challenging. These were just thrown in here to make use of the touch screen. Honestly, who wants to solve puzzles while playing Call of Duty? It's weird and just doesn't fit. It really breaks the flow of combat. The enemy AI is also pretty dumb. Enemies just stand there and shoot at you; don't take cover or move out of the way. This is literally an on-rails shooting gallery and is insanely linear. Levels are way too long, and some objectives have unfair checkpoint placements or none at all. Objectives range from collecting something to planting a bomb or just shooting everything in sight. I found the scripted mounted machine gun levels pretty fun, but the AC-130 level (similar to the console version) is awful and boring. You can barely make out any enemies, and you can't use larger weapons against smaller enemies. There are only a couple of buildings to blow up, and you just mow down dozens of enemies over and over again in almost complete silence. It was a bad level, for sure.
The visuals are decent for what the system can do. They are definitely sterile and boring to look at, with no artistic flair. The game tried capturing the hyper-realism of the consoles, and the DS just can't quite do this. It's a very brown and beige-looking game. There's no personality put into this game. It feels like a copy-and-paste FPS that you could attach any name to. Multiplayer is the same as single-player, but with another person. It's not very exciting, and your friends will get bored fast. I appreciate n-space for trying to capture the excitement of the console versions on the limited hardware, but it needs something else. Better enemy AI, less linear-feeling levels, more interesting scripted levels, and fewer storyboard-cut scenes. It's a great first start, but it has a lot of work before it becomes a staple DS shooter.
Minimalistic, story-driven games can be quite memorable and fantastic. The lack of gameplay requires you to have a laser focus on the story and characters, and the subtle gameplay can bring a visual element that no other medium can provide. Three Fourths Home isn't one of these, sadly. While the visuals are striking and minimal, the story and writing have so much potential, but they are let down by a short and disappointing ending.
You play a teenage girl named Kelly who is driving home in a violent storm in rural Nebraska while talking to her family on the phone. Gameplay consists only of holding down a button to continue driving and choosing a few dialogue options. Holding down a single button for the entirety of the game is a really dumb idea. It introduces hand cramps and constantly breaks your focus on the story. You can honk your horn and turn off your lights, which is entirely pointless, and you can't move the car at all. You can also choose to turn the radio on and off. There is no spoken dialogue in the game, but this requires you to make up voices and visuals for the game in your head. This may sound really dumb to most people, and some might argue that you should just read a book, and in this specific context, this would be a better medium for this story.
Choices in dialogue don't seem important at first, but your response to your family plays into how they react to you on the phone. I guess multiple playthroughs could be worth it as there are a couple of different endings, but with how mundane the gameplay is, no one will want to sit through the hand cramps to make it worthwhile. I had issues with the controls, causing me to choose the wrong option as well. You need to skip through dialogue with a button to advance each line while holding down another to keep driving, and some times you wouldn't know that a dialogue option would be coming up and you would just advance forward.
See, with minimal games like this, you need some sort of gameplay hook to keep it interesting enough. Three Fourths doesn't do this at all. The mom, dad, and brother are all interesting characters, and you slowly learn about this family dynamic through this phone call. You learn about why you "ran away," what kind of person the dad is, whether or not this is a broken home, etc. The dialogue is tight and interesting enough to keep you glued until the end, that is, if the hand cramps don't send you packing first. I also wish more was going on visually. Occasionally, a background object will be brought up in the conversation, but it's just black-and-white visuals without any type of payoff. The visuals, gameplay, and everything else are just an excuse to call this interactive story a game, and it does the bare minimum to qualify as that.
Most games like this have a story that ends in sudden tragedy to flip the entire thing on its head and stun the player, but this one doesn't really do that either. If it did and the pay-off was incredible, all of this could be worth it, and there are plenty of games similar to this that pull that off. As it stands, Three Fourths Home is a well-written story in a terrible game with an even worse gameplay mechanic.
You play a teenage girl named Kelly who is driving home in a violent storm in rural Nebraska while talking to her family on the phone. Gameplay consists only of holding down a button to continue driving and choosing a few dialogue options. Holding down a single button for the entirety of the game is a really dumb idea. It introduces hand cramps and constantly breaks your focus on the story. You can honk your horn and turn off your lights, which is entirely pointless, and you can't move the car at all. You can also choose to turn the radio on and off. There is no spoken dialogue in the game, but this requires you to make up voices and visuals for the game in your head. This may sound really dumb to most people, and some might argue that you should just read a book, and in this specific context, this would be a better medium for this story.
Choices in dialogue don't seem important at first, but your response to your family plays into how they react to you on the phone. I guess multiple playthroughs could be worth it as there are a couple of different endings, but with how mundane the gameplay is, no one will want to sit through the hand cramps to make it worthwhile. I had issues with the controls, causing me to choose the wrong option as well. You need to skip through dialogue with a button to advance each line while holding down another to keep driving, and some times you wouldn't know that a dialogue option would be coming up and you would just advance forward.
See, with minimal games like this, you need some sort of gameplay hook to keep it interesting enough. Three Fourths doesn't do this at all. The mom, dad, and brother are all interesting characters, and you slowly learn about this family dynamic through this phone call. You learn about why you "ran away," what kind of person the dad is, whether or not this is a broken home, etc. The dialogue is tight and interesting enough to keep you glued until the end, that is, if the hand cramps don't send you packing first. I also wish more was going on visually. Occasionally, a background object will be brought up in the conversation, but it's just black-and-white visuals without any type of payoff. The visuals, gameplay, and everything else are just an excuse to call this interactive story a game, and it does the bare minimum to qualify as that.
Most games like this have a story that ends in sudden tragedy to flip the entire thing on its head and stun the player, but this one doesn't really do that either. If it did and the pay-off was incredible, all of this could be worth it, and there are plenty of games similar to this that pull that off. As it stands, Three Fourths Home is a well-written story in a terrible game with an even worse gameplay mechanic.
2014
Tongue-in-cheek comedies about the Cold War are something I quite enjoy. Movies like Austin Powers that make fun of the time period can be downright hilarious. CounterSpy tries this with the player working for an unknown neutral agency called C.O.U.N.T.E.R., and everything they do and their plans are all spelled this way with no actual meaning. You play either the Americans or Russians' bases to steal sets of plans to stop nuclear weapons from destroying the moon. The goal is to keep the DEFCON level as low as possible (5), and if it reaches zero during a level, a one-minute countdown starts, and you need to find the computer to finish the level to stop it. Thankfully, if it does reach zero, the level ends, and you start from DEFCON 1 again.
The only way to lower the DEFCON level is through passive items or getting officers dressed in white to surrendy by pointing your gun at them. This can make having to repeatedly repeat levels very difficult. The levels are randomly generated each time, but that doesn't mean the difficulty doesn't increase. You will need to search more rooms while plans for weapons and items are hidden better. More guards will appear and there will be more open areas. These can be the most difficult to navigate, especially when security cameras come into play. The green ones can be shot down with weapons, but the orange-armored ones can only be taken down with explosives. You can dodge and roll your way through a camera's cone of vision, but you need to be fast. I found the randomness of levels to be frustrating, as a lot of guard patrols just don't line up to be able to be stealthy. A lot of times, you will need to mow down every guard, and some levels can be multi-tiered. Thankfully, the alertness only lasts for that section of the level. Once you go through the door to the next section, the guards don't know you're there.
Cover is your best friend in this game. Yellow arrows on the cover will tell you which way you will face, and lining up your shot is important. The longer you pop out of cover to aim, the quicker guards will notice you. Guards are pretty dumb, and cameras won't even notice dead bodies, so shoot them out to your heart's content. This is the only saving grace for the randomness of these levels. If this was a more realistic stealth game, it would feel impossible to finish. However, I still wound up getting each side to DEFCON 1, so I had to constantly restart a level once the countdown timer started. It's futile to try to run to the exit in 60 seconds unless you're already close. If you quit the mission, you just restart back to where you were prior to that level.
Once you do get all the launch plans, you can continue to play either side to get more weapons and item plans and lower the DEFCON level as much as possible. The final mission will start on the side with the highest level, so this can lead to a lot of frustration unless you really want all of those weapons. I honestly felt the game got pretty tedious towards the end and just wanted to get the game over with. I didn't feel the need to continue playing, as the randomness kind of ruins the fun gameplay elements with poor guard patrol patterns, making it impossible for really perfect stealth runs. The Vita version suffers from frequent slowdowns when the action starts. The game will pause for a split second, causing accuracy issues when shooting.
Overall, CounterSpy has all of the elements of a fun arcade-like action stealth game, but the randomness of the levels makes it hard to get that perfect run, which can discourage the player from wanting to collect all the weapons. The tongue-in-cheek humor does the job just fine, and the controls are well thought out. Just be prepared for some frequent restarts.
The only way to lower the DEFCON level is through passive items or getting officers dressed in white to surrendy by pointing your gun at them. This can make having to repeatedly repeat levels very difficult. The levels are randomly generated each time, but that doesn't mean the difficulty doesn't increase. You will need to search more rooms while plans for weapons and items are hidden better. More guards will appear and there will be more open areas. These can be the most difficult to navigate, especially when security cameras come into play. The green ones can be shot down with weapons, but the orange-armored ones can only be taken down with explosives. You can dodge and roll your way through a camera's cone of vision, but you need to be fast. I found the randomness of levels to be frustrating, as a lot of guard patrols just don't line up to be able to be stealthy. A lot of times, you will need to mow down every guard, and some levels can be multi-tiered. Thankfully, the alertness only lasts for that section of the level. Once you go through the door to the next section, the guards don't know you're there.
Cover is your best friend in this game. Yellow arrows on the cover will tell you which way you will face, and lining up your shot is important. The longer you pop out of cover to aim, the quicker guards will notice you. Guards are pretty dumb, and cameras won't even notice dead bodies, so shoot them out to your heart's content. This is the only saving grace for the randomness of these levels. If this was a more realistic stealth game, it would feel impossible to finish. However, I still wound up getting each side to DEFCON 1, so I had to constantly restart a level once the countdown timer started. It's futile to try to run to the exit in 60 seconds unless you're already close. If you quit the mission, you just restart back to where you were prior to that level.
Once you do get all the launch plans, you can continue to play either side to get more weapons and item plans and lower the DEFCON level as much as possible. The final mission will start on the side with the highest level, so this can lead to a lot of frustration unless you really want all of those weapons. I honestly felt the game got pretty tedious towards the end and just wanted to get the game over with. I didn't feel the need to continue playing, as the randomness kind of ruins the fun gameplay elements with poor guard patrol patterns, making it impossible for really perfect stealth runs. The Vita version suffers from frequent slowdowns when the action starts. The game will pause for a split second, causing accuracy issues when shooting.
Overall, CounterSpy has all of the elements of a fun arcade-like action stealth game, but the randomness of the levels makes it hard to get that perfect run, which can discourage the player from wanting to collect all the weapons. The tongue-in-cheek humor does the job just fine, and the controls are well thought out. Just be prepared for some frequent restarts.